United Nations and private aid agencies warned Friday that an unprecedented number of people in Africa’s volatile Sahel region are in desperate need of life-saving assistance and protection.

Aid agencies say they are alarmed but not surprised by the extent of the humanitarian crisis gripping the Sahel.

Years of conflict in half a dozen countries, terrorist attacks, climate change causing food insecurity and now the COVID-19 pandemic have stripped the population of its ability to protect and provide for itself.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports 24 million people, or 1 in 5 of the Sahel’s total population of 120 million, need international assistance and protection to survive.

They warn this humanitarian crisis could spill into new regions and into West African coastal countries if life-saving needs are ignored.